Why should you prefer hiring an SEO company with experience within your niche?

When was the last time you used a search engine like Google? The answer in most cases is going to be, not that long ago. Since their inception, internet search engines have become such an integral part of our lives that we don’t think twice about them anymore. However, have you ever wondered how these search engines work?

These engines use complicated software and algorithms that compare a query to websites online and rank them in terms of content, popularity and keywords. Given that there is a particular criterion for ranking results, you would be correct in assuming that businesses can make use of this to get their websites to rank higher. This is where SEO, or ‘Search Engine Optimization’ comes into play. SEO works by making sites more search engine and user-friendly.

There is no shortage of SEO services in today’s environment- services that specialize in boosting traffic to your website. However, picking the right one can be a daunting task. Hiring an SEO company that gels well your niche is unanimously considered the best option. Anyone with enough experience in SEO companies will tell you as much. Here is a brief discussion on why this is the case.

Know the Target Audience:

A lot of research goes into marketing. Just ask large multinational companies like Apple. This research is aimed to identify parameters like the target audience and what strategies work best with them. This may sound simple; however, it is anything but that. Lots of manpower and resources need to be directed to this endeavour. These increase the expenses for the company, and in the case of SEO‘s, these then translate to higher rates for clients.

A niche specific SEO indeed needs to conduct the same studies initially as well. However, if they deal with similar clients, they do not need to keep doing the same market analysis over and over again. The SEO company can save a lot of capital by avoiding this redundancy. So, all this SEO needs to do now is keep their studies up to date.

The result is a streamlined and efficient SEO service that is profitable to both the SEO company and their clients.

Marketing Strategy:

Marketing involves figuring out two things. The first is who to market to. The second is how this should be done. Once an SEO has discovered the target audience for a client’s website, its next job is to figure out how to attract them to it. Although a lot of thought is put into the marketing strategy, even the best of SEOs cannot always predict how the audience will receive it. Indeed, there has to be a lot of trial and error before the perfect solution is uncovered. With time, it may even be found that although one strategy does work, another one is far better.

You get no points for guessing that a niche specific SEO company will be better equipped to market a business than a non-specialized one. They would have already gone through the trial and error phase and are now loaded with tried and tested marketing techniques specially designed for that business. This means steady profits instead of a long rocky road of uncertainty.

How to Improve User Experience:

A large part of an SEO company’s job is to suggest a change to the client website to make it more user-friendly. These improvements could include making the site architecture more straightforward to provide a ‘cleaner’ outlook, making it mobile friendly or refining navigation between pages on the website. They could also include adding keywords to the content and having more explicit headlines.

These changes not only make the user experience better, but they also make it easier for a search engine to sieve through the site’s content and match it to a query so that it shows up higher on a result. Since websites are also ranked according to time users spend on it, a more enjoyable experience means the site ranks ever higher on search results.

A niche SEO will know precisely who the target viewers are and how to design a website to their liking. As with marketing strategy, an SEO less experienced in the topic will have to turn to unproven methods of improving the website which may or may not work.

Know the Competition:

If you have ever seen a tennis match, you may see a player target an opponent’s weaker backhand and win. The next time the two meet, the loser may have improved his backhand and may perhaps have even borrowed a few tips from his rival’s serve technique. In this way, sports and business are somewhat similar. You can learn a lot from your competition if you have been in business long enough.

Exploiting a competitive business’ weaknesses and picking up some of their strong points is a great way to stay ahead of the game. An SEO company that has been in this space knows what tactics have worked competing businesses in the past and could add them to their arsenal over the years. Any new client they take on will thus have the benefit of a more comprehensive array of methods to get their site to the top of the rankings.

Conclusion:

To find an SEO that best matches your company’s needs, you should start by compiling a list of candidates using online reviews on sites like Google, Facebook or Yelp. Then you should approach these candidates one by one and ask them if they can provide a few recommendations from businesses within the same niche as yours. If all seems good so far, the final step is to hold a meeting with the selected SEO where you discuss your goals and objectives. Apart from the usual queries, you are looking for how much they know about the field you work in and how much interest they show in your business. If you are satisfied, you can proceed to hire.

The SEO you hire does need to be competent and legitimate. It needs to be one that carries out sound SEO practices instead of merely using black hat SEO techniques like Spamdexing. It also needs to be professional and competent. Perhaps just as importantly, it also needs to be the best fit for your business. One should think long and hard about this decision as finding the right SEO is critical to a business’s success.

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